Lisa Hodapp
DOB Unknown – April 12, 2010
Lisa Hodapp was a popular Fort Lauderdale-area punk musician during the ’80s and ’90s. She first came to prominence as singer and bassist for area punk legends, Morbid Opera. Later she played guitar in the all-girl group, the Gargirls. And in recent years, Hodapp fronted her own band, Fraulien. She also found time through all that to earn a degree in law. Lisa Hodapp was 49 when she died of cancer on April 12, 2010.
Lisa Hodapp was a huge inspiration and a punk rock role model to so many people including myself.
As a teenage punk girl growing up in South Florida in the late eighties/early nineties, I sometimes felt like the “scene” was a virtual wasteland for girls and women getting into punk rock. It felt exclusive and full of machismo, a real boy’s club.
Discovering Morbid Opera was a huge turning point for me during that time. I loved their record so much I’d listen to it on repeat much to the chagrin of some of my friends! In listening to that record, I heard a sound so raw, so strong and so female. I heard the possibilities.
Morbid Opera and other bands with ladies playing in them, made it feel possible for me to follow suit. I’ve been playing in bands ever since, 19 years and counting. In the mid-nineties, I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa and after much bonding, a friendship was formed.
She was always so supportive to the younger generations that came up after her. Unjaded and enthusiastic, Lisa was always ready to start a new musical project and to make new friends. She blew minds with her multi-faceted life, a bad ass rocker, a whip-smart lawyer, and a mother to boot. In the mid-nineties, there was a brief time that Morbid Opera reformed and she asked me to join to sing backups. It was a real dream come true! Lisa was still rocking, her latest project was called Fraulein.
It’s always so hard to lose someone so vivacious to an illness as epidemic as cancer. There’s so many unspokens. Let’s start the conversations on how we can truly love and support each other when we get sick. It means everything.
As Lisa leaves us, she leaves us with a little bit of fire,
sharpened wits, a real tenderness and a desire to push for something more, to create something more.